Wunschkonzert
(Request Concert) DVD

Nazi Germany's Most Popular Radio Program Goes to the Cinema!

At the Eleventh Olympiad in Berlin, lovely Inge Wagner (Ilse Werner) and Lieutenant Herbert Koch (Carl Raddatz) meet, fall in love, and plan to marry. Three days later he is sent on a secret mission to Spain and forbidden to communicate with anyone. Three years later, Germany invades Poland and the Second World War begins. German radio begins broadcasting its Wunschkonzert für die Wehrmacht series, which plays soldiers’ requests. Herbert asks for the Olympic fanfare, a reminder of the girl he’d loved and lost. The inspiration for Eduard von Borsody’s Wunschkonzert (Request Concert) came from Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. Ufa, Germany’s leading studio, produced the picture as a Staatsauftragsfilm (“state-produced film”). The film was designed to exploit the success of the popular radio program that provided an emotional bond between troops on the front and those they left behind at home. The radio show demonstrated the power of German radio in Goebbels’ propaganda war. The theme of separation during wartime is a common one. What distinguishes Wunschkonzert is its clever blend of fiction and, through newsreel and documentary footage, contemporary events. The film includes footage of Adolf Hitler arriving at the Olympic Games, Spanish Civil War newsreels, and a rousing battlefield montage of soldiers listening to the Request Concert. The musical interludes feature numbers by some of Germany’s leading stars—Marika Rökk, Paul Hörbiger, and Heinz Rühmann. Wunschkonzert was the second biggest box-office success of the war, seen by over 20,000,000 viewers, grossing RM 7,200,000, and earning a profit of RM 4,239,000 even before foreign sales were figured in.